Transport for London

BYD Europe has reported two all-battery bus firsts. The company has delivered “a completely emissions free pure electric double decker especially designed and developed for Transport for London.”Read More >>

Fast-charging ultracapacitors from San Diego’s Maxwell Technologies (NASDAQ:MXWL) are powering lighting, air ventilation, and multimedia entertainment equipment on 34 ten-passenger cable cars now carrying passengers across the River Thames in London.Read More >>

Transport for London welcomed the 200th hybrid bus to its fleet last week. The vehicle is an Enviro400H model by Alexander Dennis Ltd, with HybriDrive brand series driveline by BAE Systems with lithium ion batteries – supplied by A123 Systems.Read More >>

Trials of B30 biodiesel on a dozen of Transport for London’s older, out-of-warranty Mercedes Sprinter vans could pave the way for use of the renewable full on the agency’s newer vehicles, like this Bluebird-outfitted, Volkswagen T5 transporter-based Dial-a-Ride van.

Transport for London is gearing up for a year-long test of B30 biodiesel in 12 of its older Mercedes Sprinter vehicles in door-to-door Dial-a-Ride service.

If the renewable fuel proves out in the aging Sprinters with their four-cylinder, 2.8-liter engines, TfL will tackle the warranty issues that stymie its use in newer diesel vehicles. Biodiesel could then find regular use in some 370 so-called DAR vehicles, as well as in the agency’s larger buses. TfL might even undertake the installation of its own blending facilities.

It is estimated that the B30-fueled vehicles will produce 25% less carbon emissions than a normal diesel-powered vehicle.

TfL’s biodiesel will be supplied by Scotland’s Argent Energy, which processes used cooking oil from the catering industry and tallow, a residue from meat processing. Argent diverts no feedstocks from food use, development director Dickon Posnett told F&F. “It is themost sustainable of any of the current commercial biofuels,” the company says.

Argent is the first European biodiesel producer registered with the U.S. EPA for sales in America, Posnett says.

Elsewhere in clean vehicles, TfL has 171 hybrid diesel buses in London, which its says is already the largest hybrid fleet in the UK – and has 150 more on order. The agency currently operates five hydrogen fuel cell buses between Covent Garden and Tower Gateway Station. They entered service this past January. “It is hoped that, with the purchase of three more buses, the route will be serviced completely by hydrogen buses, a first for the UK,” states a release.